Indian cricketing hero Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been provided an all-female police force to protect him from his female fans, police say, reports internet.

AP, Nellore --Getting into an election mode, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday said the UPA government had cushioned the impact on people from rising oil prices and asserted that the party accorded top priority to the welfare of farmers.

PTI, Kolkata- A group of Indian scientists have come out against the Indo-US civil nuclear deal saying it will leave the country at the "mercy of uranium-rich countries and big corporate houses" for supply and consequently vulnerable to a rise in price of the radioactive metal.

BBC

The former Crown Princess of Nepal, Himani Shah, has left for Singapore with her three children, immigration officials said.

REUTERS, NEW DELHI - People in India and Pakistan show a readiness to let the disputed region of Kashmir decide its own fate, and many would tolerate independence if that ended the long-running Himalayan conflict, a rare poll on the crisis said.

Protest for Suu Kyi

Desk Report

A Myanmar court has charged 14 people for causing "public offence" during a protest marking the birthday of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a defence lawyer said on Thursday.

A genetic variant peculiar to Africans substantially raises their risk of infection with HIV, according to research that suggests evolved susceptibility may be helping to drive the continent's Aids epidemic.

Internet

Three times this month, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have addressed national Hispanic advocacy and community service organizations. As a result, it is possible to draw a picture of the strategy and tactics that each of the presumed nominees intends to employ to win the Hispanic vote, expected to be decisive in several battleground states.

AP, NAHARIYA, Israel -- Thousands of mourners turned out Thursday for the burials of two Israeli soldiers returned in a prisoner exchange with Lebanese guerrillas, laying to rest the young men whose unknown fate had riveted the Jewish state for two years.

US presidential candidate Barack Obama raised US$52 million (NZ$66 million) in June, more than double the US$22 million raised by his Republican rival John McCain, reports Stuff.co.nz.

AAP, ADELAIDE - A deadly mushroom known as the death cap has been found in South Australia for the first time.

stuff.co.nz

Earth's natural resources are being squandered to fuel "insatiable consumption", the Pope says.
Addressing tens of thousands of Catholic youths gathered in Sydney for World Youth Day, Pope Benedict XVI referred to man-made "scars marking the earth".

AP, NEW YORK -- Wall Street extended its rally into a second session Thursday after stronger-than-expected quarterly reports from Coca-Cola Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and United Technologies Corp. gave investors some reassurance about the health of the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 100 points.

AP, ATLANTA -- Coca-Cola Co. said Thursday its second-quarter profit fell 23 percent as it took a one-time charge related to its bottler.

REUTERS, WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits rose by a less-than-expected 18,000 last week to 366,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, a Labor Department report showed on Thursday.

Staff Correspondent

Arafat Rahman Coco was released from the prison ward of BSMMU Hospital on Thursday, shortly after the government approved eight weeks parole for him on medical grounds.

CA says

Staff Correspondent

Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed said Thursday his government was working to bring reforms to the electoral process for the good of the people.

Replacing RPO

Desk Report

Awami League's Amir Hossain Amu called upon government policy makers on Thursday to abandon the move to replace the Representation of the People Order 1972 with the Representation of the People Ordinance 2008, approved in principal by the interim cabinet on Sunday.

Egypt train crash

The death toll from a train crash in northern Egypt has risen to 42, a day after the country's worst rail disaster in almost two years, state news agency MENA said.

Forty people were also injured on Wednesday when a train ploughed into the vehicles after a truck slammed into a car and a bus waiting at the crossing, pushing them onto the tracks.

REUTERS, COLOMBO - Sri Lankan troops killed 24 Tamil Tiger rebels and are advancing into a rebel-held area in the far north after capturing a strategically important coastal town from the Tamil Tigers, the military said on Thursday.